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w/. v-X C^'^^'^^X^ 



Number 1 



THE 

ANCIENT MARINER 

BY 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY 

JOHN PHELPS FRUIT, Ph.D., (Leipsic) 

PROEESSOR OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE IN WILLIAM 
JEWELL COLLEGE, LIBERTY, MO. 

OV TTOAA dAAo. TToAv 



BEN J. R SANBOEN & CO. 

BOSTON, U.S.A. 

Published Monthly. Subscription Price, 50 cents 
Entered at Post Office, Boston, as second-class matter. April 8, 1899. 



29286 



Copyright, 1899, 

By John Phelps Fruit. 
TWO COPIftA rcfiCCIVSO. 




''^f Pf C*^" 



C. J. PETEK8 & Son, TYI'OGKAI'IIERS, 

Boston. 






PREFACE 



Since the Ancient Mariner is no fragment like 
Ohristahel and Kuhla Khan^ but the single master- 
piece that glorifies the genius of the poet, it 
seems proper to focus the attention of the stu- 
dent, in the Introduction, upon the significance of 
the poem in Coleridge's literary life, and upon 
its place in the history of English verse. 

To aid the student in extricating himself from 
the embarrassing variety of imagery, it^is thought 
wise to make many of the notes merely topical 
suggestions. By this means the larger parts are 
more readily appreciated as members of the or- 
ganic whole ; at the same time, details all kinds 
"nd their proper place and significance. 

The notes contain just so much detail in the 
way of explanation as is considered adequate to 
the end for which this volume is published. 



Vlll PREFACE 



The picture herewith is from the portrait 
painted by Peter Vandyke, in 1795, and repre- 
sents Coleridge in the heyday of his career as 

P^^^- J. P. F. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface vii 

Introduction 

I. Life of Coleridge ... 1 

II. Origin of Ancient Mariner ..... 10 

III. Critical Comments : 

1. The Poem . . . ! 14 

2. The Gloss 25 

IV. To THE Student 27 

V. Bibliography 29 

The Ancient Mariner 33 

Notes ... 71 



IISTTEODUCTIOH" 



I. COLERIDGE 

In English literature Coleridge is best character- 
ized as our divine talker. Hazlitt speaks most aptly 
and significantly of Coleridge's charm in talk: — 

" His genius has angelic wings, and fed on manna. He 
talked on forever, and you wished him to talk on forever. 
His thoughts did not seem to come with labor and effort, but 
as if the wings of imagination lifted him off his feet. His 
voice rolled on the ear like a pealing organ, and its sound 
alone was the music of thought." 

Charles Lamb recalls him as a boy at Christ's 
Hospital in this now famous passage : ^^ Come back 
into memory, like as thou wert in the day-spring of 
thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before 
thee, — the dark pillar not yet turned, — Samuel Tay- 
lor Coleridge, — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! How 
have I seen the casual passer through the Cloisters 

1 



2i COLERIDGE 

stand still, entranced with admiration (while he 
weighed the disproportion between the speech and the 
garb of the young Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, 
in thy deep and sweet intonations, the mysteries of 
Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for even in those years thou 
waxedst not pale at such philosophic draughts), or 
reciting Homer in his Greek, or Pindar — while the 
walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed to the accents 
of the inspired charity boy ! " 

From his apprenticeship to books as a boy at 
Christ's Hospital until his death at Highgate in 1834, 
he was fascinating to hear in conversation, as the 
words of the literary men who came under the spell 
by privilege of a personal acquaintance bear witness. 

Even Carlyle sets him forth in a rather picturesque 
way as he sees him in his last years at Highgate : 
"Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill in those 
years, looking down on London and its smoke-tumult, 
like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle, 
attracting towards him the thoughts of innumerable 
brave souls engaged there." 

When Coleridge talked, who could hear must listen. 
He was the Ancient Mariner, and held his guests not 
by the glittering eye, but by the magic of his tongue. 
It is strange, too, that the highest tribute to the fas- 
cinating power of his speech is to be found in his 



INTRODUCTION 6 

great poem, and that in lines not written by him, but 
contributed by Wordsworth : — 

" The Wedding-Guest stood still, 
. 'And listens like a three years' child : 
The Mariner hath his will." 

No other poem so unconsciously betrays the charac- 
ter of the man and the mind of its author as does 
The Hime of the Ancient Mariner. We can see it mak- 
ing towards us early in his career. We know the poet 
was born in Devonshire, at the Vicarage of Ottery 
St. Mary, on the 21st of October, 1772, but we know 
nothing of his childhood except what he himself tells 
in a letter to his friend Thomas Poole. It is to the 
effect that he was a fretful, timorous, and tell-tale 
boy ; and, at school, was driven from play, and sub- 
jected to continual nagging. Thus shut out from 
boyish sports, he gave himself up to the reading 
of such books as <Tack the Giant -Killer, Delisarius, 
Bobi7iso7i Crusoe^ A7xibian Nights' Entertainments^ 
and became a dreamer with less and less inclina- 
tion to bodily exertion. So as a child he lived alone 
in a fairy world, and had, he says, all the simplicity 
of the little child and all the docility, but none of 
the child's habits ; he never thought as a child, and 
never had the language of a child. He remembered 



4 COLERIDGE 

that his father wished him to be a parson, and 
would take walks with him, and would name the 
stars to him, and expatiate upon the wonders of the 
heavens. " I heard him with a profound delight 
and admiration," says Coleridge, "but without the 
least mixture of wonder or incredulity. For from 
my early reading of fairy-tales, and about genii and 
the like, my mind had been habituated to the Vast ; 
and I never regarded my senses in any way as the 
criteria of my belief. I regulated all my creeds by 
my conceptions, not by my sight, even at that age." 
We may conclude that we find, in this account of his 
childhood, the root of that which flowered into The 
A?icie?it Mariner. 

He himself summed up this period by saying that 
before he was eight he was "a character." But when 
his father died in October, 1781, this wayward boy 
in" his ninth year, fell into hands that fashioned his 
genius for poetry. He was sent to the great Charity 
School in London, Christ's Hospital, the headmaster 
of which was the Eev. James Boyer. 

Of Boyer Coleridge thus writes : — 

"At school I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very 
sensible, though at the same time, a very severe master, the 
Reverend James Boyer. He early moulded my taste to the 
preference of Demosthenes to Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus 



INTRODUCTION 5 

to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He habituated me to 
compare Lucretius (in such extracts as I then read), Terence, 
and, above all, the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the 
Roman poets of the so-called silver and brazen ages, but with 
even those of the Augustan sera; and, on groimds of plain 
sense and universal logic, to see and assert the superiority of 
the former, in the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts 
and diction. At the same time that we were studying the 
Greek tragic poets, he made us read Shakspeare and Milton as 
lessons : and they were the lessons, too, which required most 
time and trouble to bring up^ so as to escape his censure. I 
learned from him that poetry, even that of the loftiest, and, 
seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as 
severe as that of science, and more difficult, because more 
subtle, more complex, and dependent on more and more fugi- 
tive causes. In the truly great poets, he would say, there is 
a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the 
position of every w^ord; and I well remember that, availing 
himself of the synonyms to the Homer of Didymus, he made 
us attempt to show, with regard to each, why it would not 
have answered the same purpose, and wherein consisted the 
peculiar fitness of the word in the original text. 

" In our own English Compositions (at least for the last 
three years of our school education), he showed no mercy to 
phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, 
or where the same sense might have been conveyed with 
equal force and dignity in plainer words. Lute, harp, and 
lyre, Muse, Muses, and inspirations, Pegasus, Parnassus, and 
Hippocrene, were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can 
almost hear him now, exclaiming, ' Harp f Harp ? Lyre f 
Pen and ink, hoy, you mean! Muse, boy, Muse? Tour 



6 COLERIDGE 

nurse'' s daughter^ you mean! Pierian spring? Oh, aye! 
the cloister-pump I suppose ! ' Nay, certain introductions, 
similes, and examples were placed by name on a list of 
interdiction." 

Severe as this regimen in books was, enforced by 
flogging, and accompanied by other discomforts men- 
tioned by Lamb in his essay, Christ^ s Hospital Fwe- 
and- Thirty Years Ago, Coleridge yet remembered 
Boyer gratefully in these words : — 

" The reader will, I trust, excuse this tribute of recollec- 
tion to a man, whose severities, even now, not seldom fur- 
nish the dreams by which the blind fancy would fain intei'pret 
to the mind" the painful sensations of distempered sleep; 
but neither lessen nor dim the deep sense of my moral and 
intellectual obligations. He sent us to the University excel- 
lent Latin and Greek scholars, and tolerable Hebraists. Yet 
our classical knowledge was the least of the good gifts which 
we derived from his zealous and conscientious tutorage." 

After nine years at Christ's Hospital, Coleridge 
was appointed to an Exhibition at Jesus College, 
Cambridge, where he entered, as sizar in February, 
1791 ; was made pensioner in November of the same 
year ; and matriculated in March, 1792. 

Among his friends at Christ's Hospital, Middleton, 
afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, stood to him as a 
counsellor and protector. Middleton was at Pem- 



INTRODUCTION 7 

broke College when Coleridge entered Jesus, and it 
was under his influence that Coleridge began his 
university career auspiciously by winning in 1792 
the Brown medal for a Greek ode. When Middleton 
left Cambridge, however, Coleridge came to grief. 
Wine-parties, political and religious views too freely 
discussed, debts, " a heavy disappointment in love," 
all contributed to his enlisting, in a moment of 
despondency, in the Light Dragoons in December, 
1793, under the name of Silas Tomkyn Comberbach. 
In April, 1794, he procured his discharge, however, 
and was again at the University. 

In June he visited at Oxford Bob Allen, a boon 
fellow of the Christ' s-Hospital days, and through him 
met Southey. The two became warm friends, and 
with a few kindred spirits planned Pantisocracy, 
the visionary scheme of an ideal community in which 
a minimum of manual labor and much poetry and 
philosophy should bring the " statelier Eden " back 
to earth; it was to be "far from the madding crowd's 
ignoble strife," on the banks of the Susquehanna. 

On his return from a tour in Wales, Coleridge 
came to Southey at his home in Bristol. Upon 
further discussion of Pantisocracy, the two resolved 
to go to America to realize the earthly paradise. 
The scheme conceived marriage to be essential. 



8 COLERIDGE 

Southey was already engaged to Edith Fricker ; and 
the fitness of things seemed to suggest Coleridge's 
engagement to Edith's sister Sarah, and it was so. 

After more than a year of impractical and unsuc- 
cessful effort to raise the means wherewith to carry 
out their dream, Southey, setting sail for Lisbon, 
announced his abandonment of the scheme. But 
Coleridge was rash enough to comply with the Pan- 
tisocratic regulation about taking a wife, and he was 
married to his '• Sara" on the 4th of October, 1795. 

His honeymoon was spent in a cottage at Cleve- 
don, near Bristol. "My Sara" is the ear-mark of 
the poems of this period ; he begins The kalian Har}:) 
with "my pensive Sara." He loved, yet his eccen- 
tricities and poor health made the struggle for a live- 
lihood hard. Fortunately he found a friend in one 
Thomas Poole. In order to be near him, Coleridge 
removed in December, 1796, to Nether Stowey, in 
Somersetshire. 

Coleridge appreciated the poetic genius of Words- 
worth in all the fulness of its promise in the 
Descriptwe Sketches (1793) : they were now to know 
each other personally, and cement a life-long friend- 
ship. On an occasion when Coleridge preached in 
the Unitarian Chapel at Bridgewater, he seems to 
have gone thence to meet Wordsworth and his sister 



I 



INTRODUCTION » 

at Kacedown. There was enough of mutual admira- 
tion ; for Coleridge, on a second visit, brought them 
along with him on a proposed tour of the Quantock 
country, where they were his guests for two weeks. 
This was in July, 1797. The Wordsworths took 
a house in the neighboring village of Alfoxden. 
Dorothy, writing from there on August 14, said : 
" We spent a fortnight at Coleridge's ; in the course 
of that time we heard that this house was to let, 
applied for it, and took it. Our principal inducement 
was Coleridge's society. It was a month yesterday 
since we came to Alfoxden." 

This visit of the Wordsworths to the Quantock 
region is famous for being a 3^ear long, but it is more 
notable for its profit to Coleridge. It meant Cole- 
ridge's masterpiece, The Ancient Mariner^ and much 
of what else is ranked as his best. Wordsworth was 
the quickener of his powers, and the moral support of 
his character. 

There is little in the life of Coleridge after 1798 to 
interest the student of his poetry. He is the same 
interesting but vacillating creature of earlier d?ys, 
standing sorely in need of a strong character to care 
for him. 

Through the generosity of the brothers Wedgwood, 
he went, in September, 1798, to Germany for study. 



10 COLERIDGE 

He returned the following year to call attention to 
German literature by the translation of Schiller's 
WaUenstein. From this time till 1816 it is a sad 
story of a bond-slave to opium. He went for his 
health to Malta in 1804, returning in 1806. Estranged 
from his family, he did the most desultory kind of 
work to support life. In 1809 he made another ven- 
ture in journalism, but The Friend was unsuccessful, 
as had been the Watchman of 1796. 

He put himself in 1816 into the hands of Dr. Gill- 
man of Highgate, London, where he resided till his 
death, and under whose treatment he mastered the 
opium habit, and enjoyed the distinction of drawing 
to him, to quote Carlyle again, many brave souls. 

He died on the 25th of July, 1834. 



II. THE ANCIENT MAEINER 
Origix 

The Ancient Mariner Avas first published anony- 
mously in 1798, in a volume entitled Lyrical J^allads. 

Coleridge, in the Biographia Liter aria^ speaks of 
the inception of this volume : — 

"During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were 
neighbors, our conversation turned frequently on the two car- 



INT ROD UCTION 1 1 

dinal points of poetry, — the power of exciting the sympathy 
of the reader by a faithful adlierence to the truth of nature, 
and the power of giving the interest of novelty, by the modi- 
fying colors of the imagination. The suddeii charm which 
accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset, dif- 
fused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to rep- 
resent the practicability of combining both. These are the 
poetry of nature. The thought suggested itself (to which of 
us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be com- 
posed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were 
to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the interest aimed 
at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the 
dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accom- 
pany such situations, supposing them real. . . . For the 
second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life ; 
the characters and incidents were to be such as would be 
found in every village, and its vicinity, where there is a medi- 
tative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them 
when they present themselves. 

"In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads^ 
in which it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed 
to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic, 
yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest 
and a .semblance of truth sufficient to procure from these 
shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief 
for the moment which constitutes poetic faith. Mr. Words- 
worth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself, as his 
object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, 
and to excite a feeling analogous to the supernatural by 
awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, 
and directing it to the loveliness and wonders of the world 



12 COLERIDGE 

before us, an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in conse- 
quence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude, we 
have eyes which see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that 
neither feel nor understand." 

Concerning the origin of T/ie Ancie?it 3fariner, 
Wordsworth has written: — 

"In the autumn of the year 1797, he (Coleridge), my 
sister, and myself, started from Alfoxden pretty late in the 
afternoon, with a view to visit Linton and the Valley of 
Stones near to it : and, as our united funds were very small, 
we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a 
poem, to be sent to the New Monthly Magazine, set up by 
Phillips, the bookseller, and edited by Dr. Aiken. Accord- 
ingly we set off and proceeded along the Quantock Hills to- 
wards Watchet, and in the course of this walk was planned 
the poem of The Ancient Mariner, founded on a dream, as 
Mr. Coleridge said, of his friend Mr. Cruikshank. Much the 
greatest part of the story was Mr. Coleridge's invention, but 
certain parts 1 suggested : for example, some crime was to be 
committed which should bring upon the Old Navigator, as 
Coleridge afterwards delighted to call him, the spectral perse- 
cution, as a consequence of that crime and his own wander- 
ings. I had been reading in Shelvocke\s Voyayes, a day or 
two before, that while doubling Cape Horn, they frequently 
saw albatrosses in that latitude, the largest sort of sea-fowl, 
some extending their wings twelve or fifteen feet. ' Suppose,' 
said I, * you represent him as having killed one of these birds 
on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of 
those regions take upon them to avenge the crime.' The 



I 



INTRODUCTION 13 

incident was thouglit fit for tlie purpose and adopted accord- 
ingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the 
dead men, but do not recollect that I had anything more to 
do with the scheme of the poem. The gloss with which it 
was subsequently accompanied was not thought of by either 
of us at the time, at least not a hint of it was given to me, 
and I have no doubt it was a gratuitous afterthought. We 
began the composition together on that, to me, memorable 
evening. I furnished two or three lines at the beginning of 
the poem, in particular : — 

" * And listened like a three-years' child; 
The mariner hath his will.' 

These trifling contributions, all but one (which Mr. C. has 
with unnecessary scrupulosity recorded), slipped out of his 
mind as they well might. As we endeavored to proceed con- 
jointly (I speak of the same evening), our respective man- 
ners proved so widely different that it would have been 
quite presumptuous in me to do anything but separate from 
an undertaking upon which I could only have been a clog. 
. . . The Ancient Mariner grew and grew, till it became 
too important for our first object, which was limited to 
our expectation of five pounds, and we began to talk of a 
volume, which was to consist, as Mr. Coleridge has told the 
world, of poems chiefly on supernatural subjects, taken from 
common life, but looked at, as much as might be, through 
an imaginative medium." 

The second edition of the poem appeared in 1800, 
pruned of many of its archaisms, and refined, in cer- 
tain parts, of its horrors. 



14 COLERIDGE 

It was printed again in 1817 in a collection en- 
titled jSibylliiie Leaves, in the Preface to which is 
this : — 

" The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (with, for the first 
time, the marginal notes, and the motto from T. Burnet)." 



III. COMMENTS. 
1. The Poem, 

The Ancient Mariner was at first unpopular with 
the critics. Neither Soutliey nor Lamb was pleased 
with it. Wordsworth grumbled that it made against 
the success of the Lyrical Lallads as a volume, but 
would not omit it from the second edition, as Coleridge 
had desired. 

He inserted a note into the Preface, however, 
which began by enumerating the '' great defects " of 
his friend's poem. These are : — 

" First, that the principal person has no distinct character, 
either in his profession of Mariner, or as a human being who 
having been so long under the control of supernatural im- 
pressions, might be supposed himself to partake of something 
supernatural ; secondly, that he does not act, but is continu- 
ally acted upon; thirdly, that the events having no necessary 



INTR on UC TION 1 5 

connection do not produce eacli other; and lastly, that the 
imagery is somewhat too laboriously accumulated." 

On the other side, in way of compensation, he 
writes : — 

" Yet the poem contains many delicate touches of passion, 
and, indeed, the passion everywhere true to nature ; a great 
number of the stanzas present beautiful images, and are ex- 
pressed with unusual felicity of language; and the versifica- 
tion, though the metre is unfit for long poems, is harmonious 
and artfully varied, exhibiting the utmost powers of that 
metre, and every variety of which it is capable. It, there- 
fore, appeared to me that these several merits (the first of 
which, namely, that of the passion, is of the highest kind) 
gave to the poem a value which is not often possessed by 
better poems." 

Coleridge was not appreciated then, evidently be- 
cause he was new in both form and spirit. Taine 
savs: — 

" Others, like Southey and Coleridge in particular, manu- 
factured totally new rhythms, . . . for instance, a verse in 
which accents, and not syllables, were counted." 

Again he says : — 

"Coleridge, a thinker and dreamer, a poet and critic, in 
Christahel and TJie Anrient Mariner reopened the vein of the 
supernatural and the fantastic." 



16 COLERIDGE 

Apropos, Leslie Stephen writes : — 

"The germ of all Coleridge's utterances may be found — 
by a little ingenuity — in the ' Ancient Mariner.' For what 
is the secret of the strange charm of that unique achieve- 
ment ? I do not speak of what may be called its purely lit- 
erary merits, — the melody of versification, the command of 
language, the vividness of the descriptive passages, and so 
forth — I leave such points to critics of finer perception and 
a greater command of superlatives. But part, at least, of the 
secret is the ease with which Coleridge moves in a world of 
which the machinery (as the old critics called it) is supplied 
by the mystic philosopher. Milton, as Penseroso implores — 

" ' The spirit of Plato to unfold 

What worlds or what vast regions hold 
The immortal mind that liatli forsook 
Her mansion in this fleshly nook; 
And of those demons that are fomid 
In fire, air, flood, and underground, 
Whose power hath a true consent 

With planet or with element.' 

m 

"If such a man fell aslefep in his 'high, lonely tower,' his 
dreams would present to him in sensuous imagery the very 
world in which the strange history of the Ancient Mariner 
was transacted. It is a world in which both animated things, 
and stones, and brooks, and clouds, and plants are moved by 
spiritual agency ; in which, as he would put it, the veil of 
the senses is nothing but a symbolism, everywhere telling of 
unseen and supernatural forces. What we call the solid and 
the substantial becomes a dream : and the dream is the true 



INTRODUCTION IT 

underlying reality. The difference between such poetry and 
the poetry of Pope, or even Gray, or Goldsmith, or Cowper, — 
poetry which is the direct utterance of a string of moral, polit- 
ical, or religious reflections, — implies a literary revolution. 
Coleridge, even more distinctly than Wordsworth, represented 
a deliberate rejection of the canons of the preceding school." 

The distinction is illustrated in Coleridge's reply 
to those who harp on didactic lines : — 

"Mrs. Barbauld once told me that she admired the An- 
cient Mariner very much, but that there were two faults in 
it, — it was improbable, and had no moral. As for the proba- 
bility, I owned that that might admit some question ; but as 
to the want of a moral, I told her that, in my judgment, the 
poem had too much; and that the only or chief fault, if I 
might say so, was the obtrusion of the moral sentiment so 
openly on the reader as a principle or cause of action in a 
work of such pure imagination. It ought to have no more 
moral than the Arabian Nights' tale of the merchant's sit- 
ting down to eat dates by the side of a well, and throwing 
the shells aside, and lo ! a genie starts up, and says he 
muM kill the aforesaid merchant, because one of the date- 
shells had, it seemed, put out the eye of the genie's son." 

But the poem has won the very head and heart of 
modern criticism. 

William Watson thus writes of it : — 

"Whether or not a born 'maker,' he (Coleridge) was cer- 
tainly a born theorist ; andwe believe not only that under all 
his most important achievements there was a basis of Intel- 



18 COLERIDGE 

lectual theory, but that the theory, so far from being an alien 
and disturbing presence, did duty as the unifying principle 
which co-ordinated the whole. We think we can see such a 
theory underlying The Ancient Ifariner, and securing the 
most unqualified success of that poem; and we further think 
we can see it departed from in one isolated instance, with 
temporary artistic disaster as the result. 

" Any one examining the poem with a critical eye, for its 
machinery and ground-work, will have noticed that Coleridge 
is careful not to introduce any element of the marvellous or 
supernatural, until he has transported the reader beyond the 
pale of definite geographical knowledge, and thus left behind 
him all those conditions of the known and the familiar, all 
those associations with recorded fact and experience, which 
would have created an inimical atmosphere. Indeed, there is 
perhaps something inartistic in his undignified haste to con- 
vey us to the festhetically necessary region. In some half 
dozen stanzas, beginning with 'The ship was cleared,' we find 
ourselves crossing the line, and driven far toward the Southern 
Pole. Beyond a few broad indications thus vouchsafed, Cole- 
ridge veiy astutely takes pains to avoid anything like geog- 
raphy. We reach that silent sea into which we are the first 
that ever burst, and that is sufficient for imaginatire ends. It 
is enough that the world as known to actual navigators is 
left behind, and a world which the poet is free to colonize 
with the wildest children of his brain has been entered. 
Forthwith, to all intents and purposes, we may say, in the 
words of Goethe, as rendered by Shelley: 

' The bounds of true and false are passed ; 
Lead on, thou wandering gleam.' 



INTRODUCTION 19 

Thenceforth we cease to have any direct relations witli the 
verifiable. Natural law is suspended; standards of probabil- 
ity have ceased to exist. Marvel after marvel is accepted by 
us, as by the Wedding-Guest, with the unquestioning faith of 
'a three-years' child.' We become insensibly acclimatized to 
this dreamland. Nor is it the chaotic, anarchic, incoherent 
world of arabesque romance, where the real and unreal by 
terms arbitrarily interrupt and supplant each other, and are 
never reconciled at heart. On the contrary, here is no incon- 
sistency; for with the constitution of this dream-realm nothing 
except the natural and probable would be inconsistent. Here 
is no danger of the intellect or the reason pronouncing an 
adverse judgment, for the venue has been changed to a court 
where the jurisdiction of fancy is supreme. Thus far, then, 
the logic of the Incredible is perfect, and the result, from the 
view-point of art, magnificent. But at last we quit this con- 
sistently, unimpeachably, most satisfactorily impossible world ; 
we are restored to the world of common experience ; and when 
so restoring us, the poet makes his first and only mistake. 
For the concluded miracle, or, rather, brace of miracles, — the 
apparition of the angelic forms standing over the corpses of 
the crew, and the sudden preternatural sinking of the ship, 
— take place just when we have returned to the province of 
the natural and regular, to the sphere of the actual and the 
known ; just when, floating into harbor, we sight the well- 
remembered kirk on the rock, and the steady w^eathercock 
which the moonlight steeps in silentness. A dissonant note 
is struck at once. We have left a world where prodigies were 
normal, and have returned to one where they are monstrous. 
But prodigies still pursue us with unseasonable pertinacity, and 
our feeling is somewhat akin to that of the Ancient Mariner 



20 COLERIDGE 

himself, whose prayer is that he may either 'be awake' or 
may ' sleep alway.' We would fain either surremler uncondi- 
tionally to reality, or remain free, as naturalized citizens of a 
self-governing dreamland." 

Swinburne says : — 

"And this poem is beyond question one of the supreme 
triumphs of poetry. Witness the men who brought batteries 
to bear on it right and left. Literally : for one critic said that 
the ' moral sentiment ' had impaired the imaginative excel- 
lence ; another, that it failed and fell through for want of a 
moral foothold upon facts. Remembering these things, I am 
reluctant to proceed; but desirous to praise, as I best may. 
Though I doubt if it be worth while, seeing how The Ancient 
Mariner., praised or dispraised, lives and is like to live for the 
delight equally of young boys and old men; and seeing also 
that the last critic cited was no less a man than Hazlitt. It 
is fortunate, among many misfortunes, that for Coleridge no 
warning word was needed against the shriek of the press-gang 
from this side or that. He stooped once or twice to spurn 
them ; but he knew that he stooped. His intense and over- 
wrought abstraction from things of the day or hour did him 
no ill service here. 

" The Ancient Mariner has doubtless more of breadth and 
space, more of material force and motion, than anything else 
of the poet's. And the tenderness of sentiment which touches 
with significant color the pure white imagination is here no 
longer morbid or languid, as in the earlier poems of feeling 
and emotion. It is soft and piteous enough, but womanly 
rather than effeminate ; and thus serves indeed to set off the 
strange splendors and boundless beauties of the story. For 



INTRODUCTION 21 

the execution, I presume no human eye is too dull to see how 
perfect it is, and how high in kind of perfection. Here is not 
the speckless and elaborate finish which shows everywhere 
the fresh rasp of file or chisel on its smooth and spruce excel- 
lence; this is faultless after the fashion of a flower or a tree. 
Thus it has grown: not thus has it been carved." 

Lowell writes : — 

"It is enough for us here that he (Coleridge) has written 
some of the most poetical poetry in the language, and one 
poem, The Ancient Mariner^ not only unparalleled, but un- 
approached in its kind, and that kind of the rarest. It is 
marvellous in the mastery over that delightfully fortuitous 
inconsequence that is the adamantine logic of dreamland. 
Coleridge has taken the old ballad measure, and given to it, by 
indefinable charm wholly his own, all the sweetness, all the' 
melody and compass, of a symphony. And how picturesque it 
is in the proper sense of the word. I know nothing like it. 
There is not a description in it. It is all picture. Descrip- 
tive poets generally confuse us with multiplicity of detail; we 
cannot see their forest for trees ; but Coleridge never errs in 
this way. With instinctive tact he touches the right chord of 
association, and is satisfied, as we also are. I should find it 
hard to explain the singular charm of his diction, there is so 
much nicety of art and purpose in it, whether for music or 
for meaning. Nor does it need any explanation, for we all 
feel it. The words seem common words enough, but in the 
order of them, in the choice, variety, and position of the 
vowel sounds they become magical. The most decrepit 
vocable in the language throws away its crutches to dance 
and sing at his piping. I cannot think it a personal peculiar- 



22 COLERIDGE 

ity, but a matter of universal experience, that more bits of 
Coleridge have embedded themselves in my memory than of 
any other poet who delighted my youth — unless I should 
except the sonnets of Shakespeare. This argues perfectness 
of expression." 

Walter Pater says : — 

" Christabel, though not printed till 1816, was written 
mainly in the year 1797: The Binjme of the Ancient Mari- 
ner was printed as a contribution to the Lyrical Ballads in 
1798; and these two poems belong to the great year of Cole- 
ridge's poetic production, his twenty-fifth year. In poetic 
quality, above all in that most poetic of all qualities, a keen 
sense of, and delight in beauty, the infection of which lays 
hold upon the reader, they are quite out of proportion to all 
his other compositions. The form in both is that of the bal- 
lad, with some of its terminology, and some also of its quaint 
conceits. They connect themselves with that revival of bal- 
lad literature of which Percy's Belies, and, in another way, 
Macpherson's Ossian, are monuments, and which afterwards 
so powerfully affected Scott — 

" ' Young-eyed poesy 
All deftly masked as hoar antiquity.' 

" The Ancient Mariner . . . is a ' romantic' poem, impress- 
ing us by bold invention, and appealing to that taste for tha su- 
pernatural, that longing for le frisson, a shudder, to which the 
'romantic '^school in Germany, and its derivations in England 
and France, directly ministered. In Coleridge personally, this 
taste had been encouraged by his odd and out-of-the-way read- 
ing in the old-fashioned literature of the marvellous, — books 



INTR OD UCTION 2 3 

like Purchas's Pilgrims, early voyages like Hakluyt's, old 
naturalists and visionary moralists like Thomas Bin-net, 
from whom he quotes the motto of The Ancient Mariner, 
''Facile credo, plurefi esse naturas invisibiles qiiam visibiles 
in reruni universitate, etc.'' Fancies of the strange things 
which may very well happen, even in broad daylight,- to 
men shut up alone in ships far off on the sea, seem to have 
occurred to the human mind in all ages with a peculiar readi- 
ness, and often have about them, from the story of the steal- 
ing of Dionysus downwards, the fascination of a certain 
dreamy grace, which distinguishes them from other kinds of 
marvellous inventions. This sort of fascination llie Ancient 
Mariner brings to its highest degree : it is the delicacy, the 
dreamy grace, in his presentation of the marvellous, which 
makes Coleridge's work so remarkable. The too palpable 
intruders from a spiritual world in almost all ghost litera- 
ture, in Scott and Shakespeare even, have a kind of crudity 
or coarseness. Coleridge's power is in the very fineness with 
which, as by some really ghostly finger, he brings home to our 
inmost sense his inventions, daring as they are — the skeleton 
ship, the polar spirit, the inspiriting of the dead corpses of 
the ship's crew. The Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner has 
the plausibility, the perfect adaptation to reason, and the 
general aspect of life, which belong to the marvellous, when 
actually presented as part of a credible experience in our 
dreams. Doubtless, the mere experience of the opium- 
eater, the habit he must almost necessarily fall into of not- 
ing the more elusive phenomena of dreams, had something 
to do with that : in its essence, however, it is connected with 
a more purely intellectual circumstance in the development 
of Coleridge's poetic gift. Some one once asked William 



24 COLERIDGE 

Blake, to whom Coleridge has many resemblances when 
either is at his best (that whole episode of the re-inspir- 
iting of the ship's crew in The Ancient Mariner being 
comparable to Blake's well-known design of the ' Morning 
stars singing together') whether he had ever seen a ghost, 
and was surprised when the famous seer, who ought, one 
might think, to have seen so many, answered frankly, ' Only 
once ! ' His ' spirits,' at once more delicate, and so much 
more real than any ghost — the burden, as they were the 
privilege, of his temperament — like it, were an integral 
element in his everyday life. And the difference of mood 
expressed in that question and its answer, is indicative of a 
change of temper in regard to the supernatural which has 
passed over the whole modern mind, and of which the true 
measure is the influence of the writings of Swedenborg. 
What that change is we may see if we compare the vision 
by which Swedenborg was ' called,' as he thought, to his 
work, with the ghost which called Hamlet, or the spells of 
Marlowe's Faust with those of Goethe's. The modern mind, 
so minutely self-scrutinising, if it is to be affected at all by a 
sense of the supernatural, needs to be more finely touched 
than was possible in the older, romantic presentment of it. 
The spectral object, so crude, so impossible, has become 

plausible, as — 

" * The blot upon the brain 
That will show itself without ; ' 

and is imderstood to be but a condition of one's own mind, 
for which, according to the scepticism, latent at least, in so 
much of our modern philosophy, the so-called real things 
themselves are but spectra after all. 



INTRODUCTION 25 

" Completeness, the perfectly-rounded wholeness and unity 
of the impression it leaves on the mind of a reader who fairly 
gives himself to it — that, too, is one of the characteristics 
of a really excellent work, in the poetic, as in every other 
kind of art; and by this completeness, The Ancient Mariner 
certainly gains upon Christabel — a completeness, entire as 
that of Wordsworth's Leech-gatherer, or Keats's Saint Agnes' 
Eve, each typical in its way of such wholeness or entirety of 
effect on a careful reader. It is Coleridge's one great complete 
work, the one really finished thing, in a life of many begin- 
nings. Christabel remained a fragment. In The Ancient 
Mariner this unity is secured in part by the skill with which 
the incidents of the marriage-feast are made to break in 
dreamily from time to time upon the main story. And. then, 
how pleasantly, how reassuringly, the whole nightmare story 
itself is made to end, among the clear, fresh sounds and lights 
of the bay, where it began, with — 

" * Tlie moonlight steeped in silentness, 
The steady weathercock.' 



2. The Gloss. 

Walter Pater does not forget the significance of 
the marginal prose commentary : — 

" It is this finer, more delicately marvellous supernatural- 
ism, fruit of his more delicate psychology, that Coleridge 
infuses into romantic adventure, itself also then a new or 
revived thing in English literature ; and with a fineness of 
weird effect in The Ancient Mariner, unknown in those older, 



26 COLERIDGE 

more simple, romantic legends and ballads. It is a flower of 
medieval, or later German romance, growing up in the pecu- 
liarly compounded atmosphere of modern psychological spec- 
ulation, and putting forth in it wholly new qualities. The 
quaint prose commentary, which runs side by side with the 
verse of The Ancient Manner, illustrates this — a composi- 
tion of quite a different shade of beauty and merit from that 
of the verse which it accompanies ; connecting this, the chief 
poem of Coleridge, with his philosophy, and emphasising 
therein the psychological interest of which I have spoken, 
its curious soul-lore." 

The critical introduction to Coleridge in Craik's 
Englisli Prose has this concerning the jDrose gloss to 
Tlie Ancient Mariner : — 

" The marginal gloss to The Ancient Mariner (1828) is one 
of his finest compositions, in an unfamiliar mood ; a transla- 
tion or transposition of his poem, for a purely artistic end, 
such as had never come within the view of the Watchman, or 
any other of the serious monitors of Church and State. The 
exercise was wholly different from that to which he was 
accustomed. It was not the evolution of an argument ; it 
was minute work piecemeal, following the lines of a composi- 
tion already finished, giving no room for anything like his 
usual copious paragraplis of edification, compelling him to 
write for the mere beauty of writing. 

"Nowhere else in the works of Coleridge is the element 
of prose thus disengaged from matter. It is significant of 
Coleridge's spirit, that in his moral treatises he never relied 



INTRODUCTION 27 

on anything like the charm of this prose, to gain applause 
or acceptance for his doctrines. Whether he fought well or 
slackly, he was always a combatant in his prose essays, and 
never a vendor of merely ornamental rhetoric. He never 
allowed himself to be tempted by any attraction inconsistent 
with his purpose ; his digressions were always prompted by 
something in the matter, never by the vanities of language ; 
he used no rhetorical display except what was immediately 
intended to support his ethical strategy. It is this consis- 
tency that distinguishes his style, even in its most intricate 
and florid passages, from all the varieties of ostentatious 
literature." 

lA^ TO THE STUDENT. 

Every characteristic excellence of The Ancient 
Mariner has been mentioned in the critical comments 
quoted. Re-read them, observing that the verse-form is 
said to be that of the old romantic ballad. When the 
ballad is defined as '• the pi'otoplasmic form of verse- 
making," its simplicity is indicated ; it is the verse 
that is improvised to the keeping time with the feet 
in dancing. It consists of s}- llables grouped by accent. 

The protoplasmic form may be illustrated by this 
stanza from A Plantation Serenade : — 

" De ole bee make de honeycomb, 
De young bee make de honey, 
De niggers make de cotton en c'on, 
En de w'ite folks gits de money." 



28 • COLERIDGE 

Into this simple verse-form Coleridge has breathed 
a delicate supernaturalism, infusing therewith roman- 
tic adventure. 

Observe, too, that unity of impression and com- 
pleteness of effect are spoken of. It is meant that 
the poem is an organic Avhole, that the parts are 
vitally interdependent. It is the appreciation of 
these qualities in a poem that results in the pleasur- 
able sense of the beautiful. 

One must visualize, that is, see with one's eyes 
wide open, the situation and the incident, stanza by 
stanza. The swing of the ballad-measure tends to 
make indefinite the imagery through dividing the 
attention between the mind's-ear and the mind's-eye. 
In this way the vastness of conception is rendered 
unobtrusive. 

Verify this by reading stanza 47 in the rhythmic 
time of the syllable-grouping, and then read again, 
stopping to see, The sun's rim dips — The stars rush 
out — At one stride comes the dark. 

Again, for a closer appreciation of the coherence of 
parts, study stanza 48, to understand how intimately 
it depends upon the preceding stanza ; it grows out of 
stanza 47. 

The notes are designedly full of suggestions for 
such a study of this remarkable poem. 



INTRODUCTION 29 

The student could read with profit, in connection, 
other poems of Coleridge's as, Time^ Eeal and Imcv- 
girmry ; KuhlaKhan; Fears in Solitude; Christahel ; 
The Bark Ladie ; Dejection; The Pains of Sleep; 
Love. 

Lamb's two essays, Becollections of Christ 's Hos- 
pital, and Christ's Hospital Five-and - Thirty Years 
Ago are accessible in cheap form. 

Eead essays on Wordsworth, Lamb, Southey, De 
Quincey, The Lake School, for wider information con- 
cerning Coleridge. 

If one essay on Coleridge above all others is to be 
recommended, let it be Walter Pater's in a volume 
entitled Ajypreciations ; only a part of this is to be 
found as critical introduction to Coleridge in Ward's 
English Poets. 

V. BIBLIOGEAPHY. 

There is one edition of Coleridge '5 Poetical Works 
that distances all others, that by J. Dykes Campbell, 
in a single volume published by The Macmillan Com- 
pany. The editor says at the close of his Introduc- 
tion : — 

"I had long felt that two things were wanting, —first, a 
complete collection of his poems, printed according to his own 



30 COLERIDGE 

latest revised text, and arranged in some settled order ; and, 
second, a fairly complete and accurate narrative of the events 
of his life. These desiderata I have attempted to snpply in 
this volume, which is the imperfect result of many years' 
labor of love." 

It is to this edition that the student of Coleridge 
will delight to own a large indebtedness. The text 
of the present edition of The Ancietit Mariner is that 
of this volume, with a few unimportant changes. 

The Aldine Edition of Coleridge 's Poetical Works, 
edited with introduction and notes by T. Ashe, and 
published by George Bell & Sons, London, may be 
commended. 

For biography, after Campbell's Introduction, may 
be mentioned the Life of Coleridge by H. D. Traill, 
in the English Men of Letters Series ; and the Life 
of Coleridge by Hall Caine, in the Great Writers 
Series. This last is especially valuable for the ample 
bibliography appended. 



Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visi- 
biles in rerura universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam 
quis nobis enarrabit, et gradus et cognationes et discrimina 
et singulorum munera ? Quid agunt ? quae loca habitant ? 
Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, 
numquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque 
in animo, tamquam in tabula, majoris et melioris mundi 
imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernse vitae 
minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas 
cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque 
servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus. 

T. Burnet, Archceol. Phil., p. 68. 



THE EIME OF 
THE ANCIENT MAEINER 



IN SEVEN PARTS 



Part I 



It is an ancient Mariner, 
%^nd he stoppeth one of three. 
" By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, 
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? 



An ancient 
Mariner meet- 
etb three gal- 
lants bidden 
to a wedding- 
feast, and 
detaineth one. 



"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 5 
And I am next of kin ; 
The guests are met, the feast is set : 
May'st hear the merry din." 
33 



34 



COLERIDGE 



He holds him with his skinny hand, 
10 *' There was a ship," quoth he. 

'' Hold off ! unhand me, graybeard loon ! " 
Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 



The wedding- 
guest is spell- 
bound by the 
eye of the old 
seafaring man, 
and constrain- 
ed to hear his 
tale. 



He holds him with his glittering eye — 
The wedding-guest stood still, 
15 And listens like a three years' child : 
The Mariner hath his will. 



The wedding-guest sat on a stone : 
He can not choose but hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
20 The bright-eyed Mariner. 



6 



" The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, 

Merrily did we drop 

Below the kirk, below the hill. 

Below the light-house top. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 35 



" The Sun came up upon the left, 
Out of the sea came he ! 
And he shone bright, and on the right 
Went down into the sea. . 



25 



The Mariner 
tells how the 
ship sailed 
southward 
witli a good 
wind and fair 
weather, till it 
reached the 
line. 



8 

" Higher and higher every day, 
Till over the mast at noon — " 30 

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast. 
For he heard the loud bassoon. 



9 



The bride hath paced into the hall. 
Red as a rose is she ; 
Nodding their heads before her goes 
The merry minstrelsy. 



35 



The wedding- 
guest heareth 
the bridal 
music; but the 
Mariner con- 
tinueth his 
tale. 



10 



The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast. 
Yet he can not choose but hear ; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed Mariner. 



40 



36 COLERIDGE 

11 

d?awn by a " ^^^ '^^^ ^^^ Storm-blast came, and he 

the™uth ^^^ Was tyrannous and strong : 

He struck with his o'ertaking wings, 

And chased us south along. 

12 

45 " With sloping masts and dipping prow. 
As who pursued with yell and blow 
Still treads the shadow of his foe, 
And forward bends his head, 
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, 

50 And southward aye we fled. 

13 
" And now there came both mist and snow, 
And it grew wondrous cold ; 
And ice, mast-high, came floating by. 
As green as emerald. 

14 
The land of 55 "And throuffh the drifts the snowy clifts 

ice and of *^ '' 

Sher^no""^*' ^'^^ ^^^^ ^ disuial shccu : 
waTto'be"^ Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken — 

The ice was all between. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 37 

15 
" The ice was here, the ice was there, 
The ice was all around : [howled, 60 

It cracked and growled, and roared and 
Like noises in a swound ! 



16 

" At length did cross an Albatross : 
Thorough the fog it came ; 
As if it had been a Christian soul. 
We hailed it in God's name. 



65 



Till a great 
seabird called 
the Albatross 
came through 
the snow-fog, 
and was re- 
ceived with 
great joy and 
hospitality. 



17 



" It ate the food it ne'er had eat. 
And round and round it flew. 
The ice did split with a thunder-fit ; 
The helmsman steered us through I 



70 



18 
"And a good south wind sprung up behind; 
The Albatross did follow, 
And every day, for food or play, 
Came to the mariner's hollo !- 



And lo ! the 
Albatross 
proveth a bird 
of good omen, 
and foUoweth 
the ship as it 
returned 
northward 
through fog 
and floating 
ice. 



38 



COLERIDGE 



19 
75 " In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 
It perched for vespers nine ; [white, 

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke 
Glimmered the white moon-shine. 



Tlie ancient 
Mariner 
inhosjiitably 
killeth the 
pious bird of 
good omen. 



20 
'^ God save thee, ancient Mariner ! 
80 From the fiends, that plague thee thus ! — 
Why look'st thou so ? " — " With my cross- 
I shot the Albatross." [bow 



Part II 
21 
" The Sun now rose upon the right 
Out of the sea came he, . 
85 Still hid in mist, and on the left 
Went down into the sea. 



22 



'.'And the good south wind still blew be- 
But no sweet bird did folloAv, [hind 
Nor any day for food or play 
90 Came to the mariners' hollo ! 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 39 



23 

"And I had done an hellish thing, 

And it would work 'em woe : 

For all averred, I had killed the bird 

That made the breeze to blow. 

' Ah wretch ! ' said they, ' the bird to slay, 95 

That made the breeze to blow ! ' 



His ship- 
mates cry out 
against the 
ancient Mari- 
ner, for killing 
the bird of 
good luck. 



24 

" Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, 
The glorious Sun uprist : 
Then all averred, I had killed the bird 
That brought the fog and mist. 100 

''Twas right,' said they, ' such birds to slay. 
That bring the fog and mist.' 



But when the 
fog cleared 
off, they jus- 
tify the same, 
and thus make 
themselves 
accomplices 
in the crime. 



25 



" The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew. 
The furrow followed free ; 
We were the first that ever burst 105 

Into that silent sea. 



The fair breeze 
continues; the 
ship enters the 
Pacific Ocean, 
and sails north- 
ward, even un- 
til it reaches 
the Line. 



40 COLERIDGE 

26 
Theshiphath "Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt 

been suddenly ••■ ' ^ 

becalmed. 'Twas sad as sad could be ; [down, 

And we did speak only to break 
110 The silence of the sea ! 

27 
" All in a hot and copper sky, 
The bloody Sun, at noon. 
Right up above the mast did stand, 
No bigger than the Moon. 

28 

115 " Day after day, day after day. 
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ; 
As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean. 



29 

And the Alba- "Water, water, everywhere, 

beTvenged! ° 120 And all the boards did shrink ; 



Water, water, everywhere, 
Nor any drop to drink. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 41 



- 30 
" The very deep did rot : O Clirist ! 
That ever this should be ! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy sea. 



125 



31 



" About, about, in reel and rout 
The death-fires danced at night -, 
The water, like a witch's oils. 
Burnt green, and blue, and white. 



130 



32 

" And some in dreams assured w^ere 
Of the spirit that plagued us so ; 
Nine fathom deep he had followed us 
From the land of mist and snow. 

33 
"And every tongue, through utter drought, ir>, 
Was withered at the root ; 
We could not speak, no more than if 
We had been choked with soot. 



A spirit had 
followed 
them ; one of 
the invisible 
inhabitants of 
this planet, 
neither de- 
parted souls 
nor angels; 
concerning 
whom the 
learned Jew, 
Josephus, and 
the Platonic 
Constanti- 
nopolitan, 
Michael 
Psellus, may 
be consulted. 
They are very 
numerous, and 
there is no 
climate or ele- 
ment without 
one or more. 



42 



The ship- 
mates in their 
sore distress 
would fain 
throw the 
whole guilt on 
the ancient 
Mariner ; in 
sign whereof 
they hang the 
dead sea-bird 
round his 
neck. 



The ancient 
:Mariner be- 
holdeth a 
sign in the 
element afar 
off. 



COLERIDGE 



34 



"Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks 
140 Had I from old and young ! 

Instead of the cross, the Albatross 
About my neck was hung." 

Part III 

35 
" There passed a weary time. Each throat 
Was parched, and glazed each eye. 
145 A weary time ! a weary time ! 
How glazed each weary eye, 
When looking westward, I belield 
A something in the sky. 

36 
" At first it seemed a little speck, 
150 And then it seemed a mist ; 

It moved and moved, and took at last 
A certain shape, I wist. 

37 
" A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist ■. 
And still it neared and neared : 



I 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 43 



As if it dodged a water-sprite, 

It plunged and tacked and veered. 



155 



38 

" With throats unslaked, with black lips 

baked, 
We could not laugh nor wail ; 
Through utter drought all dumb we stood ! 
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, 160 

And cried, A sail ! a sail ! 



At its nearer 
approacli, it 
seemeth him 
to be a ship ; 
and at a dear 
ransom he 
freeth liis 
speech from 
the bonds of 
thirst. 



39 

"With throats unslaked, with black lips 

baked. 
Agape they heard me call : 
Gramercy ! they for joy did grin. 
And all at once their breath drew in, 165 

As they Avere drinking all. 



A flash of joy; 



40 

" See ! see ! (I cried) she tacks no more ! 
Hither to work us weal; 
Without a breeze, without a tide, 
She steadies with upright keel ! 



170 



And horror 
follows. For 
can it be a 
ship that 
comes onward 
without wind 
or tide ? 



44 



1 0LE RIDGE 



It seemeth 
him l)iit the 
skeleton of a 
ship. 



And its ribs 
are seen as 
bars on the 
, face of the set- 
ting Sun. 
The spectre- 
woman and 
her death- 
mate, and no 
other on board 
the skeleton- 
ship. 



41 
" The western wave was all a-flame. 
The day was well nigh done ! 
Almost upon the western wave 
Rested the broad bright Sun ; 
175 When that strange shape drove suddenly 
Betwixt us and the Sun. 

42 [bars, 
" And straight the Sun Avas flecked with 
(Heaven's Mother send us grace ! ) 

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered 
180 With broad and burning face. 

43 [loud) 
" Alas ^ (thought I, and my heart beat 
How fast she nears and nears ! 

Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, 
Like restless gossameres ? 

44 
185 " Are those her ribs through which the Sun 
Did peer, as through a grate ? 
And is that Woman all her crew? 
Is that a Death ? and are there two ? 
Is Death that woman's mate ? 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 45 

45 
" Her lips were red, her looks were free, 190 ^ke^crl^^' 
Her locks were yellow as gold : 
Her skin was as white as leprosy. 
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she. 
Who thicks man's blood with cold. 



Death and 
Life-in-Death 
have diced for 



46 
*' The naked hulk alongside came, 195 

And the twain were casting dice ; the ship%" 

. • Ti t T» t 1 ^1"^^^' ^ii<l she 

' The game is done ! I ve won ! 1 ve won I (the latter) 

o winneth the 

ancient 
Mariner. 



Quoth she, and whistles thrice. 



47 
" The Sun's rim dips ; the stars rush out : ^«.*^"f'^* 

^ ' within the 

At one stride comes the dark; 200 f^^^^^^^"^^ 

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea. 
Off shot the spectre-bark. 

48 
" We listened and looked sideways up ! oiHe^^ol 

Fear at my heart, as at a cup. 
My life-blood seemed to sip ! 205 

The stars were dim, and thick the night, 
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed 
white ; 



46 



COLERIDGE 



From the sails the dew did drip — 
Till clomb above the eastern bar 
210 The horned Moon, with one bright star 
Within the nether tip. 



1 



One after 
another, 



49 



" One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, 
Too qnick for groan or sigh, 
Each turned liis face with a ghastly pang, 
215 And cursed me with his eye. 



His shipmates 
drop down 
dead ; 



50 



'' Four times fifty living men, 
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan) 
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump, 
They dropped down one by one. 



But Life-in- 
Death begins 
her work on 
the ancient 
Mariner. 



51 



220 " The souls did from their bodies fly, — 
They fled to bliss or woe ! 
And every soul, it passed me by. 
Like the whizz of my cross-bow ! " 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 47 



Part IV 



52 
" I fear thee, ancient Mariner ! 
I fear thy skinny hand ! 225 

And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 
As is the ribbed sea-sand. 



The wedding- 
guest feareth 
that a spirit is 
talking to him ; 



53 
" I fear thee and thy glittering eye. 
And thy skinny hand, so brown." — 
" Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest ! 230 
This body dropt not down. 

-^ 54 
" Alone, alone, all, all alone. 
Alone on a Avide wide sea ! 
And never a saint took pity on 
My soul in agony. 235 

55 
" The many men, so beautiful ! 
And they all dead did lie : 
And a thousand thousand slimy things 
Lived on ; and so did I. 



But the ancient 
Mariner assur- 
eth him of his 
bodily life, and 
proceedeth to 
relate his hor- 
rible penance. 



He despiseth 
the creatures 
of the calm. 



48 



COLERIDGE 



And envieth 
that they 
should live, 
and so many 
lie dead. 



56 



240 



" I looked upon the rotting sea, 
And drew my eyes away ; 
I looked upon the rotting deck, 
And there the dead men lay. 



But the curse 
liveth for him 
in the eye of 
the dead men. 



57 
" I looked to Heaven, and tried to pray ; 
245 But or ever a prayer had gusht, 
A wicked whisper came, and made 
My heart as dry as dust. 

58 
" I closed my lids, and kept them close. 
And the balls like pulses beat ; 
250 For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the 
sky 
Lay like a load on my weary eye. 
And the dead were at my feet. 

59 
" The cold sweat melted from their limbs, 
Nor rot nor reek did they : 
255 The look with which they looked on me 
Had never passed away. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 49 

60 
" An orphan's curse would drag to Hell 
A spirit from on high ; 
But oh ! more horrible than that 
Is a curse in a dead man's eye ! 260 

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse. 
And yet I could not die. 



61 
" The moving Moon went up the sky, 
And nowhere did abide : 
Softly she was going up, 
And a star or two beside — 

62 
" Her beams bemocked the sultry main. 
Like April hoar-frost spread ; 
But where the ship's huge shadow lay. 
The charmed w'ater burnt alway 
A still and awful red. 

63 
" Beyond the shadow of the ship, 
I watched the water-snakes : 
They moved in tracks of shining white. 



265 



270 



In his loneli- 
ness and fixed- 
ness he yearn- 
eth towards 
the journeying 
Moon, and the 
stars tliat still 
sojourn, yet 
still move on- 
ward; and 
everywhere 
the blue sky 
belongs to 
them, and is 
tlieir appointed 
rest, and their 
native country 
and their own 
natural homes, 
which they 
enter unan- 
nounced, as 
lords that are 
certainly ex- 
pected, and 
yet there is a 
silent joy at 
their arrival. 



By the light of 
the ]\Ioon lie 
beholdeth 
God's crea- 
tures of the 
great calm. 



50 



COLERIDGE 



275 And when they reared, the elfish light 
Fell off in hoary flakes. 

64 

" Within the shadow of the ship, 
I watched their rich attire : 
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, 
280 They coiled and swam ; and every track 
Was a flash of golden fire. 



Their beauty 
and their hap- 
piness. 



He blesseth 
them in his 
heart. 



65 

" O happy living things ! no tongue 
Their beauty might declare : 
A spring of love gushed from my heart, 
285 And I blessed them unaware : 

Sure my kind saint took pity on me, 
And I blessed them unaware. 



The spell be- 
gins to break. 



66 



" The selfsame moment I could pray 
And from my neck so free 
290 The Albatross fell off and sank 
Like lead into the sea." 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 51 



Part V 

67 

" Oh sleep ! it is a gentle thing, 
Beloved from pole to pole ! 
To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, 
That slid into my soul. 



295 



68 



" The silly buckets on the deck. 
That had so long remained, 
r dreamt that they Avere filled with dew 
And when I awoke, it rained. 



300 



By grace of the 
holy Mother, 
the ancient 
Mariner is re- 
freshed with 
rain. 



69 



" My lips were wet, my throat was cold. 
My garments all were dank ; 
Sure I had drunken in my dreams. 
And still my body drank. 



52 COLERIDGE 

70 

305 '' I moved, and could not feel my limbs 
I was so light — almost 
I thought that I had died in sleep, 
And was a blessed ghost. 



71 

s^ranSlounds " ^ud soou I heard a roaring wind : 
strinlfsights 310 It did not come anear ; 

and comino- _^ • i • ~i • ^ ^ ^ 

tionsinthesky But With itS SOUUd it SllOOK the Sails, 

and the ele- 

™®"*- That were so thin and sere. 



72 

" The upper air burst into life ! 
And a hundred fire-flags sheen, 
315 To and fro they were hurried about ! 
And to and fro, and in and out, 
The wan stars danced between. 

73 
" And the coming wind did roar more loud. 
And the sails did sigh like sedge ; [cloud ; 
320 And the rain poured down from one black 
The Moon was at its edge. 



moves on 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 53 

74 
" The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 
The Moon was at its side : 
Like waters shot from some high crag, 
The lightning fell with never a jag, 325 

A river steep and wide. 

75 
" The loud wind never reached the ship. The bodies of 

^ the ship's crew 

Yet now the ship moved on ! and'lhfshi' 

Beneath the lightning and the moon 

The dead men gave a groan. 330 

76 
" They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 
Nor spoke, nor moved their eyes ; 
It had been strange, even in a dream, 
To have seen those dead men rise. 

77 
" The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ; 335 
Yet never a breeze up blew ; 
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes. 
Where they were Avont to do ; 
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools — 
We were a ghastly crew. 340 



54 COLERIDGE 

78 
" The body of my brother's son 
Stood by me, knee to knee : 
The body and I pulled at one rope, 
Bat he said nought to me." 

79 
s^'ouKtVe"'" 345"! fear thee, ancient INIariner ! " 
demons of ^ "Be calui, tliou Weddiuff-Guest ! 

the earth or 

byl'^weU'^d "^ 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, 
S^spiru"', Which to their corses came again, 

the invocation But a trooD of Spirits blest : 

of the guardian *■ ^ 

saint. 

80 
350 " For when it dawned — they dropped their 
arms. 
And clustered round the mast ; [mouths. 
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their 
And from their bodies passed. 

81 
"Around, around, flew each sweet sound, 
355 Then darted to the Sun ; 

Slowly the sounds came back again. 
Now mixed, now one by one. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 35 

82 
''Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 
I heard the sky-lark sing ; 
Sometimes all little birds that are, 360 

How they seemed to fill the sea and air 
With their sweet jargoning ! 

83 
"And now 'twas like all instruments, 
Now like a lonely flute ; 

And now it is an angel's song, 365 

That makes the heavens be mute. 

84 
"It ceased , yet still the sails made on 
A pleasant noise till iTOon, 
A noise like of a hidden brook 
In the leafy month of June, 370 

That to the sleeping woods all night 
Singe th a quiet tune. 

85 
" Till noon we quietly sailed on. 
Yet never a breeze did breathe: 
Slowly and smoothly went the ship, 375 

Moved onward from beneath. 



56 



COLERIDGE 



The lonesome 
spirit from the 
south pole car- 
ries on the ship 
as far as the 
line, in obedi- 
ence to the an- 
gelic troop, 
but still requir- 
eth vengeance. 



86 

" Under the keel nine fathom deep, 
From the land of mist and snow, 
The spirit slid : and it was he 
380 That made the ship to go. 

The sails at noon left off their tune, 
And the ship stood still also. 



87 

" The Sun, right up above the mast, 
Had fixed her to the ocean : 
385 But in a minute she 'gan stir, 
With a short uneasy motion — 
Backwards and forwards half her length 
With a short uneasy motion. 



88 



" Then like a pawing horse let go, 
390 She made a sudden bound : 
It flung the blood into my head, 
And I fell down in a s wound. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 57 



89 

" How long in that same fit I lay, 

I have not to declare ; 

But ere my living life returned, 395 

I heard and in my soul discerned 

Two voices in the air. 

90 

" ' Is it he ? ' quoth one, ' Is this the man ? 
By him Avho died on cross. 
With his cruel bow he laid full low 400 

The harmless Albatross. 



The Polar 
Spirit's fellow 
demons, the 
invisible in 
habitants of 
tlie element, 
take part in his 
wrong; and 
two of them 
relate, one to 
the other, that 
penance long 
and heavy for 
tlie ancient 
Mariner hath 
been accorded 
to the Polar 
Spirit, who 
returneth 
southward. 



91 

" ' The spirit who bideth by himself 
In the land of mist and snow, 
He loved the bird that loved the man 
Who shot him with his bow.' 



405 



92 



"The other was a softer voice. 

As soft as honey-dew : 

Quoth he, ' The man hath penance done, 

And penance more will do.' " 



58 COLERIDGE 



Part VI 

First Voice 

93 

410 " ' But tell me, tell me ! speak again, 
Thy soft response renewing — 
What makes that ship drive on so fast ? 
What is the Ocean doing ? ' 

94 
Second Voice 

" ' Still as a slave before his lord, 
415 The Ocean hath no blast ; 

His great bright e3'e most silently 
Up to the Moon is cast — 

95 

'' ' If he may know which way to go ; 
¥ov she guides him smooth or grim. 
420 See, brother, see ! how graciously 
She looketh down on him.' " 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 59 



96 
FiKST Voice 
" ' But why drives on that ship so fast, 
Without or wave or wind ? ' 

Second Voice 
" ' The air is cut aAvay before, 
And closes from behind. 



The Mariner 
liatli been casi 
into a trance; 
for the angelic 
power cause th 
the vessel to 
drive north - 
wartl faster 
than human 
life could 
endure. 



425 



•^ ' Fl}^, brother, fly I more high, more high ! 
Or we shall be belated : 
For slow and slow that ship will go. 
When the Mariner's trance is abated.' 



98 
" I woke, and we were sailing on 
As m a gentle weather : 
'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high ; his penance 

begins anew. 

ihe dead men stood too'ether. 



430 The supernat- 
ural motion is 
retarded; the 
Mariner 
awakes, and 



99 
" All stood together on the deck. 
For a charnel-dungeon fitter: 
All fixed on me their stony eyes, 
That in the Moon did glitter. 



435 



The curse is 
finally expi- 
ated. 



60 COLERIDGE 

100 

'' The pang, the curse, with ^Yhich they died, 
Had never passed away : 
440 1 could not draw my eyes from theirs, 
Nor turn them up to pray. 

101 
" And now this spell was snapt : once more 
I viewed the ocean green, 
And looked far forth, yet little saw 
445 Of what had else been seen — 

102 
'' Like one, that on a lonesome road 
Doth walk in fear and dread, 
And having once turned round Avalks on, 
And turns no more his head; 
450 Because he knows, a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread. 

103 
" But soon there breathed a wind on me, 
Nor sound nor motion made : 
Its path was not upon the sea, 
455 In ripple or in shade. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 61 
104 

" It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek 
Like a meadow-gale of spring — 
It mingled strangely with my fears, 
Yet it felt like a welcoming. 

105 

" Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, 460 

Yet she sailed softly too : 

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze — 

On me alone it blew. 



106 
" Oh ! dream of ioy ! is this indeed And the an- 

*' *^ cient Mariner 

The light-house top I see ? 465 SfvSn^V 

Is .this tlie hill ? is this the kirk ? 
Is this mine own countree ? 

107 

" We drifted o'er the harbor-bar, 

And I with sobs did pray — 

O let me be awake, my God ! 470 

Or let me sleep alway. 



62 COLERIDGE 

108 
*' The liarbor-oay was clear as glass, 
So smoothly it was strewn I 
And on the bay the moonlight lay, 
475 And the shadow of the moon. 

109 

'' The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, 
That stands above the rock : 
The moonlight steeped in silentness 
The steady weathercock. 

110 
480 " And the bay was white Avith silent light, 
Till rising from the same, 
The angelic Full many shapes, that shadows were, 

spirits leave _ 

the dead in crimson colors came. 

bodies, 



111 

And appear "A little distancc fi'om tlie prow 

in their own 

forms of light. 485 Thosc crimson shadows were: 

I turned my eyes upon the deck — 
Oh, Christ ! what saw I there ! 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 63 

112 

" Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, 
And, by the holy rood ! 

A man all light, a seraph-man, ioo 

On every corse there stood. 

113 

" This seraph-band, eacli waved his hand : 

It was a heavenly sight ! 

They stood as signals to the land. 

Each one a lovely light ; 495 

114 

" This seraph-band, each waved his hand : 
No voice did they impart — 
No voice ; but oh ! the silence sank 
Like music on my heart. 

115 

" But soon I heard the dash of oars, 500 

I heard the Pilot's cheer ; 

My head was turned perforce away, 

And I saw a boat appear. 



64 COLERIDGE 

116 

» The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, 
505 I heard them coming fast : 

Dear Lord in Heaven ! it was a joy 
The dead men could not blast. 

117 

" I saw a third — I heard his voice : 
It is the Hermit good ! 
510 He singeth loud his godly hymns 
That he makes in the wood. 
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away 
The Albatross's blood." 



Part VII 

118 
" This Hermit good lives in that Avood 
515 Which slopes down to the sea. 

How loudly his sweet voice he rears ! 
He loves to talk with marineres 
That come from a far countree. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER Qb 

119 
" He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve — 
He hath a cnshion plump : 520 

It is the moss that wholly hides 
The rotted old oak-stump. 

120 
" The skiff-boat neared : I heard them talk, 
' Why, this is strange, I trow ! 
Where are those lights so many and fair, 525 
That signal made but now ? ' 

121 
" ' Strange, by my faith ! ' the Hermit said — 4^^ wp'wtS 
' And they answered not our cheer ! 
The planks looked warped ! and see those sails. 
How thin they are and sere ! 530 

I never saw aught like to them. 
Unless perchance it were 

122 
" ' Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 
My forest-brook along ; 

When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 535 
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, 
That eats the she-wolf's young.' 



wonder. 



66 



COLERIDGE 



123 
" ' Dear Lord ! it hath a fiendish look — 
(The Pilot made reply) 
540 I am a-f eared ' — ' Pusli on, push on ! ' 
Said the Hermit cheerily. 

124 
" The boat came closer to the ship, 
But I nor spake nor stirred ; 
The boat came close beneath the ship, 
545 And straight a sound was heard. 

125 
'' Under the water it rumbled on, 
Stjil louder and more dread : 
It reached the ship, it split the bay ; 
The ship w^ent down like lead. 

126 
550 " Stunned by the loud and dreadful sound. 

Which sky and ocean smote. 

Like one that hath been seven days drowned 

My body lay afloat ; 

But swift as dreams, myself I found 
555 Within the Pilot's boat. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 67 

127 
'' Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, 
The boat spun round and round ; 
And all was still, save that the hill 
Was telling of the sound. 

128 
"I moved my lips — the Pilot shrieked 5G0 
And fell down in a fit ; 
The holy Hermit raised his eyes. 
And praj^ed where he did sit. 

129 
'' I took the oars : the Pilot's boy. 
Who now doth crazy go, 565 

Laughed loud and long, and all the while 
His eyes went to and fro. 
' Ha ! ha ! ' quoth he, ' full plain I see, 
The Devil knows liow to row.' 

130 
" And now, all in my own countree, 570 

I stood on the firm land ! 
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, 
And scarcelv he could stand. 



68 



COLERIDGE 



The ancient 
Mariner 
earnestlj' en- 
treateth the 
Hermit to 
shrieve him ; 
and the pen- 
ance of life 
falls on hun. 



131 
" ' O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man ! ' 
575 The Hermit crossed his brow. 

' Say quick,' quoth he, ' I bid thee say — 
What manner of man art thou ? ' 



132 
" Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched 
With a woeful agony, 
580 Which forced me to begin my tale ; 
And then it left me free. 



133 



And ever and 
anon through- 
out his future 
life an agony 
constraineth 
him to travel 
from land to 
land, 



" Since then, at an uncertain hour. 
That agony returns : 
And till my ghastly tale is told, 
585 This heart within me burns. 



134 
" I pass, like night, from land to land 
I have strange power of speech ; 
That moment that his face I see, 
I know the man that must hear me : 
590 To him my tale I teach. 



THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 69 

, 135 
" What loud uproar bursts from that door ! 
The weddmg-guests are there : 
But in the garden-bower* the bride 
And bride-maids singing are : 
And hark the little vesper-bell, 595 

Which biddeth me to prayer ! 

136 
" O Wedding-Guest ! this soul hath been 
Alone on a wide wide sea : 
So lonely 'twas, that God himself 
Scarce seemed there to be. 600 

137 
'' O sweeter than the marriage-feast, 
'Tis sw^eeter far to me, 
To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company ! — 

138 
" To walk together to the kirk, 605 

And all together pray. 
While each to his great Father bends. 
Old men, and babes, and loving friends, 
And youths and maidens gay ! 



70 



COLE BIT) GE 



And to teach, 
by liis own 
example, love 
and reverence 
to all things 
that God made 
and loveth. 



139 
610 " Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell 
To tliee, thou Wedding-Guest ! 
He prayeth weft, who loveth well 
Both man and bird and beast. 



140 
" He prayeth best, who loveth best 
(515 All things both great and small ; 
For the dear God who loveth us, 
He mside and loveth all." 

141 
The ]\Iariner, Avhose eye is bright, 
Whose beard with age is hoar, 
620 Is gone: and noAv the Wedding-Guest 
Turned from the bridegroom's door. 



142 
He went like one that hath been stunned, 
And is of sense forlorn : 
A sadder and a wiser man, 
625 He rose the morro\A' morn. 



I^OTES 



RIME: 

Etymologically correct ; the commoner form, rJiyme, in- 
troduced in tlie sixteenth century, comes of the mistalcen as- 
sociation of 7'ime with rhythm, but Coleridge affects the archaic 
in using rime, as in the other words of the title of the version 
of 1798, as Ancyent Marinere. 

MOTTO : 

" I find it easy to believe that in the universe the visible 
beings are outnumbered by the invisible. But who shall tell 
us the nature common to these, their rank, their kindreds, 
the signs by which they are distinguished, the gifts in which 
they excel ? What is their task ? Where is their abode ? 
Close to full knowledge of these wonders, the mind of man 
has ever circled, nor ever attained the centre. Meanwhile, I 
trust, it will give us profit to contemplate in the mind, as in a 
picture, the image of this other world, greater than ours and 
better, lest our minds, becoming wont to the petty details of 
daily life, be narrowed overmuch, and sink to paltry thoughts. 
We must, meanwhile, keep watch, with vigilance, toward 
truth, preserving temperance of judgment, that we distinguish 
things certain from things uncertain, day from night." 
71 



72 COLERIDGE 

ARGUMENT of the first version (1798) : 

How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms 
to the cold Country towards the South Pole ; and how from 
thence she made her course to the Tropical Latitude of the 
Great Pacific Ocean ; and of the strange things that befell ; 
and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his 
own Country. 

TITLE and ARGUMENT of the second edition (1800) : 

The Ancient Mariner, A Poet's Reverie 

How a Ship having first sailed to the Equator, was driven 
by Storms, to the cold Country towards the South Pole ; how 
the Ancient Mariner, cruelly, and in contempt of the laws of 
hospitality, killed a Sea-bird ; and how he was followed by 
many strange Judgements ; and in what manner he came back 
to his own Country. 

PART I 

Stanza 1. It is an ancient Mariner. This introduction is 
a fine condensation of the type of " Once upon a time there 
was a Prince," which we have often heard when taken on 
excursions into fairy-land. The time is thus made indefinite, 
to allow freedom in the suggestion of the mysterious. The 
Mariner is too old to be remembered by his individual name, 
so the poet is without the trammels of historical tradition. 
He is old enough to be called "ancient," so the "Spirit of 
Eld" has privileges in the story. 

1. long gray beard — glittering eye ; 3. skinny hand. Chief 
outward marks of the man that is to tell a strange story. 



NOTES '^^ 

Note bis strange actions: he stops one, holds him, first 
uitli his hand and then' with his eye. 

2. next of kin. How near is " next " ? Brother? Strong- 
est reason why this guest must not be stopped. All things 
are ready, and he almost there -" May'st hear the merry din." 

3. graybeard loon! "Crazy as a loon ;" in response to 
his offering to detain the guest wath his skinny hand. 

3. Eftsoons. An archaism meaning quickly. 

With the " Hold off ! unhand me ! " of the wedding-guest, 
the Mariner's hand dropt, but the other stood still. Under 
the spell of the glittering eye, be listened like a three years' 
child. 

4. 11. 15, 10. Wordsworth's. 

5. The bright-eyed Mariner. The wedding-guest seated on 
a stone and listening like a child, the Mariner became " bright- 
eyed," and fluent as the movement of stanza 6. 

6-8, 11. 21-30. Study this part of the voyage in all that is 
suggested by the picturesque words, and by the rhythm of the 
verse. ^ 

6 and 9. Contrast these stanzas as to sentiment and move- 
ment, and imagine the storm in the soul of the wedding-guest. 
11. In the version of 1798 : — 

" Listen, Stranger! Storm and Wind, 
A Wind and Tempest strong ! 
For days and weeks it play'd us freaks — 
Like Chaff we drove along." 

11-12. The Chase. The Storm-blast is the pursuer. Note 
how^ close he follows, and how^ fast the ship moves. (1. 47.) 



<4 COLERIDGE 

13-15. A description of the land of ice and snow. 
14. drifts. Driftings. 

14. clifts. Cliffs. 

15. swound. An onomatopoetic word, meaning aicoon, 
and suggesting the dire extremity of vessel and company. 

16-20. The Albatross. 

16. Thorough. Through. 

17. 1. 67. It ate the food it ne'er had eat. In the version 
of 1798 : — 

"The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms." 

What association of ideas made the Albatross a bird of 
good omen ? 

19. vespers nine. There is a connection of thought be- 
tween this expression aiul "the pious bird" of the marginal 
gloss to stanza 20. 

20. Note the kind and depth of emotion on the part of the 
Mariner, also on the part of the wedding-guest. 

20. cross-bow. Consistent with the spirit of the old that 
dominates the poem. 

Review, in all its variety, as regards the reader, the course 
of emotion evoked by the story of the voyage thus far. 

PAET II 

How long had the ship been sailing north before the Alba- 
tross was killed ? 18 and 19. 

21-24. No\e that gloss says the shipmates make them- 
selves accomplices in the crime. 



NOTES 75 

24. like God's own head. Is not Matthew xvii. 2 sug- 
gested ? "And was transfigured before them: and his face 
did shine as the sun, and his raiment was wliite as the 
liglit." 

21-25. Follow the vessel in wind and weather till it readies 
the Line. 

25-31. that silent sea. Observe liow tlie movement of 
the verse in stanza 24 suggests tlie speed of the vessel, and 
how, in explicit terms, it is confirmed in the first two lines of 
stanza 25. How significant is "burst" ! Contrast in every 
imaginable particular the phenomena of this silent sea with 
that of tlie region of mist and snow. 

31. death-fires. Phosphoric lights. Possibly St. Elmo's 
fires, the electrical balls of light that play about the masts 
and rigging of a ship ; called by sailors " corposants." 

32 (gloss). Apropos, in The Uetitiny of Nations^ Coleridge 
philosophizes : — 

" But properties are God : the naked mass 
(If mass there be, fantastic guess or ghost) 
Acts only by its inactivity. 
Here we pause humbly. Others boldlier think 
That as one body seems tlie aggregate 
Of atoms numberless, each oi'ganized ; 
So by a strange and dim similitude 
Infinite myriads of self-conscious minds 
Are one all-conscious Spirit, which informs 
With absolute ubiquity of thought 
(His one eternal self-affirming act!) 
All his involved Monads, that yet seem 
With various province and apt agency 
Each to pursue its own self-centering eud. 



76 COLERIDGE 

Some nurse the infant diamond in the mine; 
Some roll the genial juices through the oak; 
Some drive the mutinous clouds to clash in air, 
And rushing on the storm with whirlwind speed, 
Yoke the red lightnings to their volleying car. 
Thus these pursue their never-varying course, 
No eddy in their stream. Others, more wild, 
With complex interests weaving human fates. 
Duteous or proud, alike ohedient all. 
Evolve the process of eternal good." 

32 (gloss), the learned Jew. " The influence which the 
Tuuceus (of Plato) has exercised upon posterity is partly due 
to a misunderstanding. In the supposed depths of this dia- 
logue the Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings and connec- 
tions with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and out of 
them they elicited doctrines quite at variance with the spirit 
of Plato. Believing that he was inspired hy the Holy Ghost, 
or had received his wisdom from Moses, they seemed to find 
in liis writings the Christian Trinity, the Word, the Church, 
the Creation of the world in a Jewish sense, as they really 
found the personality of God or mind, and the immortality of 
the soul." — From Joavett's Introduction to the Thnceus. 

It is said of a learned Jew, the head of this "mystical 
rationalism," that "in language like that which Plato uses 
in the' Tunceiis, he describes how God, an invisible but ever- 
present Essence, created and ruled the world by means of 
ministering spirits or potencies, of whom the Word is highest, 
and second only to Himself." 

32 (gloss). Michael Psellus, called the "Prince of Philos 
ophers," was born at Constantinople in 1020. He wrote 
Dialogue on Operations of Demons. See EncyclojJcedia 
Britannica. 



NOTES 77 

23-24, 32-34. Study ihe mental and physical condition of 
the ancient Mariner and his shipmates. 

PART III 

35. See the effect of repetition. Think of the condition 
suggested by "glazed eye." 

35-47. The Spectre Ship. Note how "a something" 
becomes "a little speck," then "a shape," and at last "a 
sail." 

37. tacked. Not here used in its nautical sense, but 
merely to express wayward motion. 

38. AVhat ransom did he pay to free his speech to cry 
"A sail!" ? Study the effect upon the crew, and how it was 
expressed. 

39. Gramercy. For grand mercl, great thanks. 

39. for joy did grin. They could not express their joy in 
a smile. 

" I took the thought of ' grinning for joy,' from my com- 
panion's [Berdmore of Jesus College, Cambridge] remark to 
me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and were 
nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the con- 
striction, till we found a little puddle under a stone. He 
said to me: 'You grinned like an idiot!' He had done the 
same." — Coleridge, Table-Talk. 

40. she tacks no more 1 What apprehensions are aroused ? 
It becomes a "strange shape," a skeleton ship, a "naked 
hulk alongside." 

44. her crew. The spectre-woman of stanza 45 and her 
mate. It is asked in the version of 1798: — 



78 COLERIDGE 

" And are these two all, all the crew, 
That woman and her fleshless Pheere? " 

He is then described: — 

"His hones were black with many a crack, 
All black and hare, I ween ; 
Jet-black and bare, save where with rust 
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust 
They're patch'd with purple and green." 

When the game is done and she whistles, this same version 
says further of him : — 

"A gust of wind sterte up behind 
And whistled thro' his bones ; 

Thro' the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth 
Half-whistles and half-groans." 

47 (gloss), courts of the Sun. The tropics. 

47. the stars rush out : At one stride comes the dark. 
Picture the sublime spectacle. 

48. What in stanza 47 suggests "we listened"? Note 
the significance of "looked sideways up." What made the 
stars dim ? Why did he fear ? 

" It is a common superstition among sailors that something 
is going to happen when stars dog the moon." — Coi.ekidge. 

48. clomb. An archaism for climbed. 

48. above the eastern bar. It is consistent with the facts 
of stanza 47 to call the horizon the "bar." 

48. Within the nether tip. 1798: — 

" Almost atween the tips." 

49-51. The Curse. Think of the suggestions in " heavy 
thump," "lifeless lump." One can associate the ideas in 



NOTES 79 

"the whizz of my cross-bow" with those of "far-heard 
whisper" as "off shot the spectre-bark" (stanza 47). 

So ended Part I and Part II with something fateful to 
the Ancient Mariner. 

PxVRT IV 

52. Compare the wedding-guest's mental state with that 
in stanza 20. Do the events of the story warrant the Mari- 
ner's fear ? See gloss. Note additional characteristics of 
outward appearance. 

52. As is the ribbed sea-sand. The wedding-guest, pos- 
sessed of the thought that he is talking to a spirit, very sug- 
gestively conceives his outward appearance to be like the 
figures of the sea-sand at low tide. / 

52. 11. 226-227. Wordsworth's. 

54-56. The Penance. Note the utter desolation of 
loneliness. 

54. And never a saint took pity on. 1708: — 

" And Christ would take no pity on." 

55. And a thousand thousand slimy things. 1798: — 

" And a million million slimy things." 

56. I looked upon the rotting deck. 1798 : — 

" I look'd upon the eldritch deck." 

57. or. Archaic for before. 

57. gusht — dust. The suggestions in the words "whis- 
per" and "dry" before we get to "dust" atone for the 
imperfect rhyme. 

58. Study the marvellous agreement of expression with 
sentiment. 



80 COLERIDGE 

60. Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse. Read 
stanzas 55-60 for the picture as a whole. 

61-65. His mind diverted from tlie dead men, there comes 
the sentiment of "happy living things.'^ Contrast in detail 
the progress of emotion in these stanzas with that in stanzas 
54-60. 

62. Like April hoar-frost spread. 1798 : — 

"Like morning frosts yspread," 

63. the elfish light — hoary flakes. Note the sense of the 
mysterious suggested. 

66. The spell broken. 

PART V 
67-74. Sleep, dreaming, awaking. 

67. To Mary Queen. Why does the holy Mother bless 
him ? See line 280. 

68. silly buckets. Empty. 

70. Xote waking sensations. 

71. the sails — so thin and sere. See line 184. 

72. Compare with stanzas 63, 64, 
73-74. The wind, ^ain, and lightning. 
75-78. The bodies of the crew reanimated. 

78. 1798, two lines more : — 

" And I quiik'd to think of my own voice 
How frightful it would be ! " 

79. Reason of the wedding-guest's fear ? 

79. a troop of spirits blest. Read stanzas 80-84, and 
contrast therewith stanza 51. 



NOTES 81 

80-81. Sweet sounds — darted to the Sun. Read Robert 
Browning's Abt Voyler for description of musical effects. 

82. From Coleridge's Answer to a Child 's Question : — 

"Do you ask what the birds say ? 



(* I love, and I love,' almost all the birds say 
From sunrise to star-rise, so gladsome are they !) 
But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love, 
The green fields below him, the blue sky above, 
That he sings, and he sings ; and forever sings he — 
'I love my Love, and my Love loves me! ' " 

84. The tune of the sails. Read stanzas 84-86. Compare 
with stanza 75. Why did it stop at noon ? See gloss to 
stanza 86. 

84-85. Between these stanzas occur four stanzas in the 
version of 1798 : — 

" 'Listen, O listen, thou Wedding-guest! ' 
' Marinere ! thou hast thy will : 
For that, which comes out of thine eye, doth make 
My body and soul to be still.' 

* Never sadder tale was told 

To a man of woman born ; 
Sadder and wiser thou wedding-guest! 
Thou' It rise tomorrow morn. 

' Never sadder tale was heard 
By a man of woman born : 
The Marineres all return' d to work 
As silent as beforne. 



82 COLERIDGE 

' The Marineres all 'gan pull the ropes, 

But look at me they n'old : 
Thought I, I am as thin as air — 
They cannot me hehold.' " 

87-88, Observe how smoothly and quietly the ship sailed 
on (stanza 85) till at noon it stood still, "fixed to the ocean," 
and how from this slock-still position it was let go like a paw- 
ing horse, causing the Mariner to fall in a swoon. 

94. This note from Campbeirs edition is interesting : 
" Borrowed half from Coleridge's own Omrio, — 

' O woman! 
I have stood silent like a slave before thee; ' 
and half from Sir John Davies, — 

' For lo the sea that fleets about the land, 
And like a girdle clips her solid waist, 
Music and measure both doth understand : 
For his great crystal eye is always cast 
Up to the moon, and on her fixed fast.' " 

89-97. The Mariner's Trance. See gloss. Note the ani- 
mus of the two voices, respectively, towards " the man." 

PART YI 

93. Why drives on the ship ? What is the Ocean doing ? 
Compare the explanation in the gloss with that of the 
Second Voice. 

98-100. See line 409. And penance more will do. 

101. And now this spell was snapt. 

101-107. Study the drift and variety of sensations. 

106. countree. Archaic for country. 



NOTES 83 

108-109. The harbor-bay — the kirk. 

Between these two stanzas the edition of 1798 has five 
stanzas : — 

" The moonlight bay was white all o'er, 
Till rising from the same, 
Full many shapes, that shadows were, 
Like as of torches came. 

A little distance from the prow 

Those dark-red shadows were ; 
But soon I saw that my own flesh 

Was red as in a glare. 

I turn'd my head in fear and dread, 

And by the holy rood, 
The bodies had advanc'd, and now 

Before the mast they stood. 

They lifted up their stiff right arms. 

They held them strait and tight ; 
And each right-arm burnt like a torch, 

A torch that's borne upright. 
Their stony eye-balls glitter'd on 

In the red and smoky light. 

I pray'd and turn'd my head away ^ 

Forth looking as before. 
There was no breeze upon the bay. 

No wave against the shore." 

110-111. Those crimson shadows. Reflections of the 
seraph-band in the water. 

112-114. This seraph-band. 

112. rood. Cross. 



84 COLERIDGE 

115-116. the Pilot. — After stanza 115, in the version 
of 1798, comes this stanza: — 

" Then vanish'd all the lovely lights; 

The bodies rose anew : 
With silent pace, each to his place, 

Came hack tlie ghastly crew. 
The wind, that shade nor motion made, 

On me alone it blew." 

117-119. the Hermit. Note his Chapel appointments. 
117. shrieve. Shrive. 



PART VII 
120. skiff-boat. What does boat add ? 
121-122, 11. 530-537. those sails. See stanza 71. 
122. ivy-tod. Ivy-plant. 

122. owlet. There must be some association in thought 
with ivy-tod through ivy-owl, which is the European tawny 
owl. 

125. The ship went down like lead. When the Albatross 
"fell off" from the Mariner's neck, it "sank like lead into 
the sea." 

126. Mariner stunned by the dreadful sound. 

127. Upon the whirl — the echoes. Study the scene with 
accompanying sounds. 

128-131. Effect of regaining consciousness upon the Pilot, 
the Pilot's boy, and the Hermit. 

132-134. What manner of man art thou ? 



NOTES 85 

134. To him my tale I teach. What did he teach ? Stanzas 
136-140. Effect on the wedding-guest ? Stanzas 141-142. 

135. Note the recurrence to the wedding-feast, binding 
the end of the poem back to the beginning, thus satisfying 
the artistic sense of unity. 

142. of sense forlorn. Deprived of sensibility, or 
" stunned." 

Review the poem with reference to the changing states of 
mind of the wedding-guest. 

Study the course of the mental changes in the Mariner as 
the narrator of the story. 

Re-read the poem, observing the revelling of your own imagi- 
nation in the rich suggestions of word and phrase and rhythm 
and rhyme. 



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